


Seasons of paper

by MadHatter13



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, Tiny spoilers for Raising Steam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 06:42:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6227959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadHatter13/pseuds/MadHatter13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rufus Drumknott, secretary to the Patrician, measures the year in terms of his paperwork.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seasons of paper

The people of Ankh-Morpork don‘t really measure seasons in the same way as is the tradition in say, Lancre, or other places where most of the people work in agriculture. True, some times of the year are warmer than others; some summers are oppressively hot and damp or unpleasantly dry. Winters are sludgy and cold and you don‘t dry out properly until spring, and sometimes not even then when the thick smogs above the city come together and fall in a browinish-grey sort of rain. 

Rufus Drumknott, secretary to the Patrician, measures the year in terms of his paperwork.

This is not as illogical as it may seem; in summer there is a surge of building permits above ground, as the human-and-other population of the city suddenly feels industrious again and wants to expand, change, refurbish or remodel. At the same time the progress of the Undertaking slows; in the mountains it is easier for the dwarves to ventilate their tunnels, but in Ankh-Morpork the heat likes to sink, and slink through the underground passages like an unpleasant street cat that doesn’t want to leave your house. Dwarves aren’t made for the heat, so even their aggressively innovative spirit has to give.

In autumn; executions, and complainants about the Commander. If Drumknott were given to speculation on such things, he’d venture a guess that crime had gone up in rainier seasons since the Watch had started to employ a werewolf. Of course, this does not make Commander Vimes any less determined to chase the perpetrators, and that’s where said complainants come from. The real reason is that due to narrative causality, the universe feels more at ease with a policeman chasing evildoers, or at least lawbreakers, through an overcast and rainy day, rather than a sunny one.

Around Hogswatch there is, ever since one strange night several years ago, reports of a black cloaked man – or at least an individual – appearing outside some children’s windows and leaving some small thing on the sill, as if it were a gift. The fact that some of these windows are several stories up, and that none of the gifts ever seem to cause (much) harm, means that the Patrician does not pursue these sightings. There must be, he observes, some small horror in childhood celebration for them to truly be. 

_(it is also in winter that one unusual mug, the one that is embossed with the slogan ‘World’s Greatest Boss’ starts to see more use for tea and occasionally coffee. This may be because of the chillier weather and the fact that they’ve never quite got the Palace heating system to work properly after its use in the unfortunate assassination of Lord Neverblind in the Century of the Concussed Stoat. Even so, in his own way, Drumknott finds this quite heartening.)_

And with spring come the carefully tagged and numbered folders; prophets of the year to come. The Patrician can do a great deal within his own city no matter the weather, and his influence has effects thousands of miles away, especially since the popularization of the clacks. But he cannot do everything (a fact that most people don’t believe, and thus enable him to do a great deal more), especially when the passages to various places, particularly those closer to the Hub, are closed by thirty feet of packed snow.

This time, a series of folders carries the distant promise of being able to change that: Ned Simnel, Harry King, Moist Von Lipwig, Iron Girder, and one small letter from the, for now, Low King of the Dwarves.

The letter is read first, and even though Drumknott has probably studied the many absent expressions of Lord Vetinari for the longest, he cannot quite decipher the one he wears just then.

Then his lordship puts the letter down, and leans his chin on his hand. ‘The future looms, Drumknott, more so now than ever. I suspect that we shall not know the full consequences for some time to come.’

‘Yes, your lordship.’

He does not know it yet, but forever after spring will, for him, arrive tinged with the taste of coal smoke.


End file.
